Prisoners in The American Revolutionary War - American Prisoners

American Prisoners

George III of Great Britain had declared American forces traitors in 1775, which denied them prisoner of war status. However, British strategy in the early conflict included pursuit of a negotiated settlement and therefore officials declined to try and/or hang them, the usual procedure for treason, to avoid unnecessarily risking any public sympathy the British might have enjoyed in the Americas. The Continental Army capture of a British army at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777 resulted in thousands of British prisoners in the hands of the Americans. This had the effect of further dissuading British officials from hanging prisoners, despite the abandoned hopes of a settlement by this stage, as they feared reprisals on prisoners being held by the Americans. Neither policy, however, prevented the British from treating common American military members being held prisoner far more harshly than the standards of the day for POWs allowed. In actuality, a malicious British neglect resulted in starvation and disease slowly and torturously achieving the same results as hanging for many American prisoners, or disability and inhumane suffering for most others who were not officers or otherwise likely to be useful in prisoner exchanges.

The British forces held relatively few places in strength for long periods. American prisoners tended to be accumulated at these sites. New York City was a major site of occupation, where sugar houses were used to detain prisoners. Philadelphia in 1777 and later Charleston, South Carolina, were also important. Facilities at these places were limited. At times the occupying army was actually larger than the total civilian population.

The British solution to this problem was to use obsolete, captured, or damaged ships as prisons. Conditions were appalling, and many more Americans died of neglect while imprisoned than were killed in battle. While the Continental Army named a commissary to supply them, the task was almost impossible. Elias Boudinot, as one of these commissaries, was competing with other agents seeking to gather supplies for George Washington's army at Valley Forge.

During the war, at least 16 hulks, including the infamous HMS Jersey, were placed by British authorities in the waters of Wallabout Bay off the shores of Brooklyn, New York as a place of incarceration for many thousands of American soldiers and sailors during about 1776–83. The prisoners were harassed and abused by guards who, with little success, offered release to those who agreed to serve in the British Navy. Over 10,000 of these prisoners died from neglect. Their corpses were often tossed overboard, though sometimes they were buried in shallow graves along the eroding shoreline. Many of the remains became exposed or were washed up and recovered by local residents over the years and later interred nearby in the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument at Fort Greene Park, once the scene of a portion of the Battle of Long Island.

Survivors of the British Prison Ships include the poet Philip Freneau, and Congressman Robert Brown.

Continental Army prisoners from Cherry Valley were held by Loyalists at Fort Niagara near Niagara Falls, New York and at Fort Chambly near Montreal.